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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23272186">I swear I'm a good man</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/junebugtwin/pseuds/junebugtwin'>junebugtwin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>RWBY</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abusive Relationships, Adam Taurus Being an Asshole, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anti-Faunus Racism (RWBY), Anxiety, Blake Belladonna Didn't Leave The White Fang, Blake needs to see a therapist!, Blood and Violence, Domestic Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Racism, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence, fuck Adam seriously, not the good timeline, rip Blake Belladonna she's had a tough life, this ones a bit dark folks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 08:15:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,223</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23272186</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/junebugtwin/pseuds/junebugtwin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Blake was twelve her parents left the White Fang.</p><p>There’s a choppy grey sea and she watches the ship leave in slow motion from the shade of a tree, too cowardly to yell goodbye and too honest to whisper it.</p><p>Things are getting worse they’d said, tired eyes scrunching with worry at the sides- and oh, she’s too young to see it then- the war and blood and struggle her parents have already lived- what they’re not willing to risk again. </p><p>She’ll understand one day, but not then. </p><p>Things are getting worse, she’d yelled back- anger swelling in her veins like the pulse of a tide, like a monsoon tugging at her shores, begging to bury her under layers of sea and sand.</p><p>When Blake was twelve she stayed.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I swear I'm a good man</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>mind the tags folks, this is a bit rougher than I normally write- its a dark au, one where Blake stays with the White Fang until she's twenty, even as they plunge remnant into another war.  This fic's mostly focused on her inner thoughts and struggle, so yeah. Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Blake was twelve her parents left the White Fang.</p><p>There’s a choppy grey sea and she watches the ship leave in slow motion from the shade of a tree, too cowardly to yell goodbye and too honest to whisper it.</p><p><em>Things are getting worse</em> they’d said, tired eyes scrunching with worry at the sides- and oh, she’s too young to see it then- the war and blood and struggle her parents have already lived- what they’re not willing to risk again.</p><p>She’ll understand one day, but not then.</p><p>Things <em>are</em> getting worse, she’d yelled back- anger swelling in her veins like the pulse of a tide, like a monsoon tugging at her shores, begging to bury her under layers of sea and sand.</p><p>When Blake was twelve she stayed.</p><p>Adam hugged her to his chest and whispered comforts and excuses and lies too sweet and too bloody to be truths. She was right to stay- she was brave and her parents were not- humans were bad and the faunus were not- justice was sought by the righteous and peace was <em>not</em>. A world of black and white for a girl struggling to escape from her own murky grey.</p><p>Tempting.</p><p>So she nodded along with his words that bled from his mouth, loud and angry like the drums of war- too loud to ignore and too red to see the signs.</p><p>A man throws a rock at her and it wipes the skin off her cheek, leaving crimson and pain in its wake. Her parents would have her turn the other cheek, Adam tells her, for the human to bruise. She hits him until he’s down, heart beating with what she thinks is pride and hopes isn’t fear.</p><p>A cop pushes her to a wall and leaves the indents of its bricks on her face, her knee’s, her heart. He points a gun at her skull for the audacity of pretending to be one of them, for claiming she has a brain that thinks and blood that pumps and eyes that cry late at night. She hits him until he’s down and kicks him until his stomach matches hers in molted purple and blue.  </p><p>A kind healer takes pity on Blake, when she stumbles into her village with burnt finger tips and bruises marring her throat in a necklace made from the imprints of hands. She rubs her back and brings her water and Blake nearly cries from the kindness, swallows the medicine she’s given without complaint or mistrust, still believing in the kindness of the soul of humanity. Blake tosses and turns, world suddenly blurring into vague colors and threatening shapes, her senses dulling and her tongue puffing up in her mouth. She cannot see the healer woman’s face go from compassionate to cruel but she feels it in her fingers as the woman yanks at her hair, and pulls her half stumbling drunk body towards a lake, feels it as her head is shoved deep under the cold waves- as she breaths in the algae and moss and bugs, as the mud touches her nose and her ears clog and her vision turns even more abstract.  She feels it even as she grabs frantically for the woman, managing to scratch a bloody tear onto her shaking arms with her nails- with her <em>inhuman</em> claws- as she drags herself out of the water, lungs aching and suffocating and panicking in large pathetic gasps. She hits her until she’s down and claws at her until she dies and then she heaves and contracts until it all leaves her body- the lake water and the mud and the bugs and leaves and blood and drugs and any of the trust she had left.</p><p>When Blake was fifteen she became a lieutenant.</p><p>She’s a storm, conflicted and grieving and furious- too young to learn the worlds horrors and look on passively, too old not to do something about it. She hurts people and it isn’t easy, it doesn’t feel good and right and it doesn’t fill her with a sense of justice- it burns, it weighs, it feels <em>wrong</em>. But it’s better than doing nothing. But it’s better than laughing when she wants to cry. It’s better than giving them what they want- and they (there’s a <em>they</em> now) want her to suffer and ache and toil and die- because she’s an animal a monster a piece of property a criminal a whore a terrorist a nothing a nothing a nothing.</p><p>Because when they put her kind in cages they weren’t meant to escape.</p><p>So she cheers with a smile inches from a grimace when they burn down shops- she celebrates when they blow up buildings- she trains and she fights and gets beaten over and over and over again- until failure tastes the same as winning, until defeat just means another scar and another story she won’t tell and hopes to forget.</p><p>Even when they win she loses.</p><p>When Blake was fifteen she was Adam’s right hand man.</p><p>She hands weapons to the new recruits and looks them in the eye as she promises their deaths, and tells herself she’s in the right. She plans beside Adam and they stay up all night pouring over maps and papers and stolen goods, marking the deaths of innocents in red sharpie, lines blurred from exhaustion and nerves.</p><p>She writes speeches and watches them pour from his mouth like the foul lake water she’d once choked on, watches her people drown.</p><p>Adam pulls her close and plays with her hair like she’s just an extension of him, like every part of herself belongs to a higher cause, like she no more owns her own limbs than he owns the ground he steps on or the ants his boot squish. He laughs at her shaky breaths and sweaty palms and kisses her with lips that taste like death and drowning and bruises.</p><p>She cannot look at anyone else without incurring his jealousy- and it is a physical presence, hanging over her like a noose tightening around her neck, so she learns to not look. She is his the same way a horse is- there is a carrot and there is the stick and she’s not sure which hurts worse. He laughs at her jokes and smiles with his teeth and murmurs secrets he’d never share with another soul, bares his weaknesses and his past and his scars- and sometimes she loves him, and that might be worse than the bruises and the bloody lips and black eyes.</p><p>Adam kills a man in cold blood, running him through slowly with his blade- casually, even as the man squeaks and sobs with discomfort and agony and pain, laughing at his body as he steps over it, uses the same dirty hands to hold her and the same cold heart to love her with and she’s afraid of what that makes her more than anything else.</p><p>She’s not ready for love, she thinks, and though she doesn’t know it yet, she’s not ready for whatever it is he really feels for her either- for it is no less punishing.</p><p>Recruits avoid her gaze simply because she avoids theirs- they know a warning sign when it blinks in front of them, lit up by her lack of voice and hunched shoulders and cold eyes- they whisper behind their hands, half pitying and half disgusted- <em>stay away from Belladonna, she’s Adam Taurus’s</em></p><p>Not his girlfriend, not his lover, or his pet- certainly not his partner or his equal- just <em>his</em>.</p><p>Blake is eighteen and she suffers.</p><p>Her emotions are constant and devoid of pattern- horrible guilt and sadness and rage and hurt one moment, and a void the next.</p><p>She moves like a machine too broken to be fixed or reshaped for any other purpose- she moves to one mission and then the next like a ghost- be it failure or success its all the same to her- the status quo is upheld as long as her lungs still expand and depress, a facsimile of breathing. She isn’t <em>hers</em> anymore and it’s all gone too far for her too take back or to comprehend- she finally understands the price of war but she’s already paid it.</p><p>She eats what little rations she can, drinks muddy lake water (wishing she’d drown) and closes her eyes when it’s time to sleep. She’s an alien pretending to be a person and she can’t even feel the surprise she used to when her allies believe the lie.</p><p>She kills people. They say it gets easier- which isn’t the truth as much as it also is. It gets worse maybe- it gets duller maybe. She’s being torn open with a kitchen knife- just because she’s stopped feeling it, doesn’t mean she won’t drop dead from blood loss.</p><p>They say they’re in a war like it’s something new- people panic, in the cities she infiltrates- it’s on the news, it’s on the web, it’s on every human tongue- and for that matter every faunus one. She nods along with the shocked conversations at the campfires, faking surprise. Blake hardly remembers what peace feels like just like most people don’t remember all the children’s tv shows they used to watch, or what Halloween costume they liked to dress up as- it’s been a long time since she was twelve.</p><p>Blake’s twenty and she kills Adam.</p><p>It’s not any particular thing. He’s not torturing some innocent, there is no dulcet moonlight of sweeping stakes- no fire, no drama, no tears.</p><p>They’re scouting a nearby village for supplies, and they’re camped up in the pines, looking through their packs to check the food they have left. It’s a sunny day, though not overly so- with the occasional fluffy cloud to shade them and a current of a low cool air that dries the sweat on the back of her neck.</p><p>Adam mentions he forgot to bring soap and laughs bitterly, rubbing his gloved hands over his un-masked face- wishing half bemusedly for an actual clean bath for once instead of a cold dip in the nearby pond.</p><p>It’s strangely normal- like one of the days they used to have, where they both act like people. She doesn’t know why she does it- all she thinks is-</p><p>All she thinks is ‘this is nice’</p><p>Then she has a bizarre moment of clarity- a touch of the god’s wisdom- flies high above them and looks down at herself with shock. She’s skinny and malnourished and beaten, hair tangled and covered every inch with scars and rust and dirt, black bruises pressed into her skin like a piece of moldy fruit- from close calls and missions and Adams hands wrapping harshly around her wrists- and</p><p>and she’s miserable. She’s suicidal. She’s trapped in an abusive relationship with a man twice her age who regularly hits her with enough force to kill a man without aura. She’s murdered people and been shot at and tortured and assaulted and drowned and hurt in so many ways- and she was in a <em>war</em>- and she barely noticed?! She’s missing a toe and her ears are clipped with enough scars to mar their triangular shape and she hasn’t seen her parents since she was <em>twelve</em></p><p>and this isn’t normal. This isn’t <em>nice</em>. She’s not <em>lucky</em>- She’s not fucking <em>lucky</em>-</p><p>And it’s not rage that takes over her, but <em>understanding</em>- but compassion- for once- for <em>herself</em>. For just <em>barely</em> enough love for her own barely functioning body that she manages to push her blade straight through her abusers back and out the other side.</p><p>Blake’s twenty and she runs away.</p><p>It’s the bravest thing she’s ever done, and she’s finally starting to understand what that means- truly how long her list of courageous deeds goes down.</p><p>Because she fought for equality and justice and fairness with bloodied knuckles when she wasn’t young enough to drink, or vote, or even go to a high school dance.</p><p>Because she <em>tried</em>. She so desperately tried to hold on to hope and love and kindness- because even when she was horrible at least it <em>hurt</em>.</p><p>Blake’s twenty two when she finally finds a home.</p><p>It’s not what she thought it would be, but neither is she. The people here- her <em>family</em>- they hug her without strangling her, talk to her and laugh with her and love her without expecting her to bend until she breaks.</p><p>She finds a girl with golden hair and a laugh like sunshine and warm water and forgiveness and <em>strength</em>- and she is <em>hers</em> while still breathing- she gets to be held and romanticized and <em>seen</em>- but she still belongs to herself, and finds the price is so much lower.</p><p>She finds her parents- she talks to them and apologizes and explains and cries, and cries, and cries- a sad little girl like she always was</p><p>and they forgive her and then they laugh with blurry tears and correct her- that there was nothing to forgive. Nothing to absolve. They love her now, yes- but they always did.</p><p>They were just waiting for her to come home.</p><p>And finally, finally it all becomes clear.</p><p>Blake’s twenty two and she’s <em>happy</em>- and that’s all that’s left to be judged or seen or read. The story is over- the rest is hers.</p>
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